It was a lot of fun tracking down
M81 and M82. The sky had been clear during the evening all week and I was excited to find some galaxies from the backyard.
M82 is dimmer than its neighbour M81. It is magnitude 8.41 and out of reach to naked eye observers. It is also a challenging object for binocular observers but certainly possible from dark sites and a steady hand.
It is known as a starburst galaxy as it is undergoing an extremely high rate of star formation. It is approximately 12 million light years away making it the closest starburst galaxy to our home. It also was discovered by Johann Bode at the same time he found M81. It is also known as the Cigar Galaxy as it appears elongated due to its orientation. It is separated from its neighbour by about 300,000 light years; three times the diameter of the Milky Way. This close proximity is responsible for the high rate of star formation.
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| M81/M82 Map |
I used the two guide stars to approximately line up the red dot finder with the region of space that contained the galaxies. At first I was a little low and ended up searching below M81 and M82. I then moved the telescope up about one 1° field of view and a blurry light appeared in the 25mm eyepiece. I realized that I had found M81. I looked around the field of view carefully with averted vision and noticed a linear blurry region no more than three quarters of a degree away. This was M82! When I got used to observing it with averted vision I was able to see it with direct vision although with less contrast.
The following evening I used my 4" refractor to take an image of this region.
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| M82 |
The observation record for M82 is shown below.
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| M82 Observation Record |
Enjoy the sights of the night sky and try to catch a galaxy at the next public star night!
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